Oregon has one of the lowest cutoffs thresholds for TANF recipients in the nation. A single parent with two children who earns $617 a month — about $7,400 a year — no longer qualifies for TANF in Oregon, according to the audit.

Policymakers need to restructure the system so that recipients face a “glide path off the program, not a cliff,” said Jessica Chanay, deputy director of Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon and a member of the Oregon TANF Alliance.

Chanay was on welfare from 1989-96 while raising two children on her own. She found a job as a framer at a construction site in 1991 but quit after about a week because her welfare payments had ended immediately.

“I couldn’t even make it those two weeks until I got my first paycheck,” Chanay said. “I couldn’t even pay for gas to get to the job, so I had to quit the job and got back on the program. I was trying to do everything I could to get off the program, and I didn’t have the support services.”

Chanay graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor’s degree in 1996, found a job and never received welfare again.